During the early days of the Council of Nice and the subsequent existence of the
Council of Basle, one section of the Council of Nice made a marked opposition to
the pretensions of the Council of Basle. Some of them were men of high rank,
others members of the lower classes. They had been formed into a union which was
called the Papal Council, and which for the time being proved to be of the
utmost importance to that Church in which it met. The first session of the
Council of Nice took place on September 2, 1487. The two bodies met in solemn
assembly and made arrangements with one another. It was decided that a
considerable portion of the Council should proceed to Zurich and lay before the
Council of Constance the proposals of the Church of Basle for settling their
disputes. It was also resolved that a meeting of the representatives of the
Christian Emperors of Germany, France, Portugal, Hungary, England and France
should be held. Three bishops were commissioned to despatch ambassadors to each
of the two Councils to urge their respective envoys to combine and come to some
agreement regarding matters ecclesiastical. It was agreed that the Council of
Basle should at once take steps for the reformation of the Church and the peace
of Christendom; while the two meetings were to be united in one. Various
questions of dispute were settled in a friendly way; but the whole subject of
the relations of the Church to the Papacy was laid before the Council of Basel,
and an agreement arrived at regarding the ecclesiastical and civil relations of
the Church with the head of the Papacy.One important result of this Council was
that it thus obtained two important concessions from the Popes: the first in
making a papal establishment the natural basis of ecclesiastical authority on a
great scale and yielding to the papal pretensions; and the second in providing
for a Papal Council of Basle in which there should be ecclesiastical authority,
and a bishop of the Roman Church, to meet the needs of the Churches of Europe.
The Council of Basle likewise obtained the provision that the election of the
Pope should be conducted by the same general council and by the head of the
Church at Rome, and that no other form of appointment than that of a personal
election to the Papacy should be in force. It was in effect a completion of the
Council of Basle. It left without a head, indeed, but with an indication of its
existence, the crowning work of the nineteenth century. The Council of Basle had
not succeeded in bringing about the acceptance of the Papal headship; but there
can be no question that the defeat of the Papal claim, at the Council of Lyons
in the year following (December 17,1530), determined the attitude of the Papacy
towards the Church, and prepared the way for the action of the Council of Trent.
For at that time it seemed as though, after the Council of Lyons, the Council of
Trent could no longer prevent the intrusion of the Papacy into the Church, and
it was recognised that there was to be no more preaching in the Churches of
Europe, for this once. Yet the fact remains that there was no Papal interference
with Church government. From that time forward,however, the rule of the Church
became more rigorous, and towards the end of the sixteenth century began the
crisis in the Church which lasted until the general council of the Council of
Trent.The organisation of the Swiss Church had been brought down to the time of
Zwingli (1516-1531). It was based upon an organisation strictly clerical in
character, as the Canons of the Roman Church insisted upon the clergy being for
the most part clerics of the clerical order. In this respect this system was a
reminiscence of that of the Roman Church, except that the mass of the people
were clerics of the clerical order, who were liable to be deposed at any moment
by the spiritual authorities. In the present instance we must recognise that
Zwingli introduced a new conception of Church government; for although a great
deal of the work of the Reformation was done under the direction of Zwingli, yet
the organisation of the Swiss Church to some extent, and the connection of the
civil with the ecclesiastical system, served as models for the organisation of
the Church in all the Protestant lands.No doubt there was a great amount of
copying of Rome, and some irregularities of arrangement were to be found. It is
to be noted, however,that most of the reformation principles and practices of
the Reformation were embodied in the Church organisation of the Swiss
Protestants; the chief result being that, whereas the earlier system was still
simple, the Church reformed more strongly and specifically, and was thereby
destined to get more help in the direction of the Protestant reformation. So
that even in the confusion arising from the change of Church organisation in the
sixteenth century the Swiss Church was drawn much more closely to Rome than it
would otherwise have been.The first work of the Reformation, however, to which
the introduction of the Bible is to be attributed, was done in the early years
of the sixteenth century. The era of the Reformation had begun; and this event
was by no means likely to pass over without some indication of its influence in
the world, for the Reformation had assumed the character of a great political
event. The work of the reformation was in a large degree concerned with the
national character of Protestantism. The reformation had been the work of
religious philosophers, and it was a momentous and noteworthy step towards the
winning of the political independence of the nations. But Luther had
accomplished no permanent political revolution.Instead of that he had worked to
establish that political absolutism of the kings which is the most distinctive
characteristic of the Protestant polity. It was not in the modern European sense
that he destroyed feudalism and other institutions based on tradition; for the
victory was of the Gospel, and he hoped by its means to add another to the ten
thousand proofs of the Divine origin of the kingdom of God. The power which he
had created was in a large sense political power, and it was part of his
function to secure such political power for the Church. He also worked, at an
early stage, to further the establishment of the independence of the Church of
the Brethren, but it was not until the Reformation became an aggressive factor
in the life of the nation that the need for further political recognition of the
Church was felt.The reformation movement was to have a most important effect on
other aspects of the life of the people, and also upon the growth and extension
of Protestantism. The great change which was thus produced, and which has been
described as the direct and immediate outcome of the Reformation, was in effect
essentially religious in its nature. The re-establishment of the Church of the
Brethren has never been one of the least noteworthy phases in the history of the
nation. During the next two centuries the popular Church of the Brethren
increased in number, importance, and popularity. The king, the nobles, and the
more educated portion of the people came more and more to regard it as the
natural bulwark of Protestantism; and in a comparatively short time, and within
comparatively short space of time, that work which Luther did for the
establishment of the national life has been carried to a high degree of
accomplishment by the English and other Protestant communities. The beginning of
the Reformation, as already indicated, was a direct consequence of the effects
which were brought about by the Reformation.It was not simply in the Church that
the recognition of the Church of the Brethren made itself felt. The religious
feelings which were aroused,and which were finally developed into a religious
habit, have already been sufficiently dealt with in connection with the general
history of the German nation; and the re-establishment of a purely spiritual
faith and of a dominant religious life in the land, one which could not possibly
have been attained save by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and by the renewing
and transforming influences of the Divine Spirit, was among the first results of
the Reformation. To that work belongs the development of the German Reformation
in its broadest and widest form; and the causes which determined the course of
that development may be shortly stated as follows:In the first place, we have
seen how the study of the Bible and of the Apocrypha, and of the Jewish
conception of God and of the obligation to fast, created a desire for the study
of the Bible in a larger and deeper manner than any before known; and, secondly,
how the passion for writing profane history and for the writing of sacred
history was fostered by the increase of the Roman Church; and,thirdly, how the
study of the Scripture in a more liberal spirit--a great impulse to the study of
the Old Testament in an earlier period in all its forms, and towards a
development of the conception of God and of a more secular spirit in the life of
the nation, helped to accelerate the spread of a new and healthier conception of
the Christian life. This latter result, and this alone, tended to produce a new
and productive condition of the nation in the matter of religion; but it also
reacted on the missionary endeavours of the members of the Church of the
Brethren to attain a deeper religious development. The desire to read the Bible,
to adopt the principles of the Reformers, and to raise the standard of life and
manners, not only stimulated the energy and assisted the zeal of the societies
of the Brethren, but also stimulated their wider application to particular
branches of the work which they had to do. In other words, the deeper study of
the Bible as the study of the Old Testament became the religion of the people,
and by the sheer force of the influence of these early studies the religious
work of the German Reformation took shape, and became one of the most important
political movements in Germany. The movement,thus inaugurated, was still later
in reaching results in other countries.Before reaching Germany, however, the
religious work of the Reformation had made a great impression upon one of the
rulers of that country. Philip of Hesse, in 1495, was a child in years; but he
was a man of religious instincts and aspirations, and his first utterances were
destined to be the embodiment of that new religious idea which for so many years
had been deeply implanted in the national mind. The importance of this movement
will not be denied. It was an expression of the revival of the primitive and
devout tendencies in the Lutheran Church; and in the Lutheran Reformation itself
there was far less of scientific study than of poetic expression. It is plain,
then, that the Reformation movement in Germany was in some respects influenced,
as it was also in some respects modified, by the study of the Scriptures in
their original languages, and with a more modern translation of the Bible into
modern German.But the condition in which the Reformation found Germany had in a
large measure changed. The enthusiasm which formerly animated men for the study
of the Bible in all its original tongues was broken down. They did not recognize
that the Bible for the understanding of God's Word, and for its guidance through
life, was not only the best language in which it was written, but, as already
noticed, it was the chief interpreter of all other languages. When we remember
that Luther was a professor of Divinity at Wittenberg; that Luther had
expounded, in the German tongue, his new faith and new life; and that this same
translation had found its way into the minds of thousands and tens of thousands
of people in other countries; and that the old German Bibles did not by any
means constitute the translation generally used, and that, except for the
selection of modern translations, the standard text of the German Bibles for our
service was of course by no means the best, we can hardly fail to see that it
became clear that the Scriptures as the Bible for the understanding of God's
Word were inadequate for the elucidation of religious problems; and, further,
that there was no substitute, no adequate translation of the Bible that was
available.In order that the question of its complete translation might be
understood, it was necessary to seek to adapt it to the spirit and needs of
Germany, and this was the task which the Government of the German Empire set
itself, and upon the result of which depended the situation under which the
Reformation came about.The aim of the Reformation, in the words of Luther
himself, was,primarily, the study of the Bible as a living interpreter of God's
words and revealing God's will in them; and, secondarily, the acquisition of a
living, active, self-interpreting, and God-glorifying Christian spirit. In order
to study the Old Testament as a living revelation of God's character and as an
example of what God's Spirit, as that Spirit of truth, is capable of doing, it
was essential that they should have some historical contact with the Old
Testament; and this contact was brought about by the introduction of
commentaries on its text. It was in this way that the institution of the
/Kleinpostille/ and the growth of a literature for it were due to the zealous
and devoted efforts of German Christians at this period. It was because the
/Kleinpostille/ and the/Kleinpostille-Lexicon/ were due to the vigorous, self-
denying, energetic,and helpful German literature which sprang up in Germany
during this period, that the celebrated /Lutherana/ was put forth in the
sixteenth century.Nor did it remain for the Reformation to avail itself of the
facilities which this literary form gave it in Germany. It had not been intended
to continue its work without the aid of a translation, and before it was
generally accepted as such an adequate one, a work of translation had to be
done, and this was accomplished in a most able and painstaking fashion by /The
Commentary on the Galatians/ in 1531. In that work, also, the advantages of
translation, as well as the emphasis which the services which it rendered were
warranted to lay upon, were well recognised, and it has always been thought that
Luther's translation was the best rendering that was available for his
readers.There is no need to dwell upon the fact that a work such as this,which
for twenty years was in the hands of all the students of German theology, could
not have found its way to a Christian home in a Protestant country like Germany
without being a source of new and most valuable information. We find, indeed, in
it the most valuable reflection on the extent of the religious life and the
condition of culture in the countries which represented the belief and received
the teachings of the Reformation, as well as the most remarkable revelation of
the kind which the Lutheran Reformation contain
